


A Deposition in Beauty

by MabelOverture



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Mild Language, Royai - Freeform, homunculus au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 00:06:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MabelOverture/pseuds/MabelOverture
Summary: “Don’t come find me.”





	A Deposition in Beauty

“Colonel?” she asked carefully.

“Yes?” he responded, unnoticing of her hesitation. He set down his pen to look up at her, and she felt doubt twine with the urge to speak. She looked between his eyes, felt her heart rate increase, let the breath stick to the walls of her throat as she pushed out the whisper of words,

“Do you think I’m beautiful?”

She awoke with a jerk, her eyes snapping open as she inhaled sharply through her nose. Sitting upright, Riza swung her legs over the bed and encompassed her forehead with cold fingers. An equally chilly snout of a dog wiggled its way beneath her elbow.

Had she indeed just dreamt that? Had this subconscious fear, this catalytic notion which she’d so successfully buried, been revived by the unjustness of sleep?

_ Dammit,  _ she admonished, closing her eyes and pressing her palm against her eyes.  _ Dammit _ .

The dream had existed as an unspoken, and unrecognized, truth.

As an unparalleled fear. A stupid, disheveled one at that. A fallacy staked in the most mortal, and most vulnerable, piece of her.

Her tongue clicked in disappointment as her eyes clenched further shut, the memory of the dream taunting her. Her head shook.

Children weep, jaunt and blush, people grow, they find themselves, they find music and they find company. Familiarity with a reflection and a bond with it. Riza never found such things.

Beauty was a necessity in the land of the living. People preached of high thinking, that such things were not of importance of them, but of course they were. To say anything different was childish, ignorant, and narcissistic. It was the truth, acknowledge it. Even the honest learn not to lie.

Riza despised that this piece of society had embedded itself in her. She despised that it had compromised her.

To avoid feeling self pity, she recognized her past as it was; difficult, and nothing more. But difficult nonetheless. She’d lived with a father whose two brilliant eyes were blind to her essence sans her back, and she’d felt nothing from him but the defamation of fire.

She was a military woman with, as other people coined, the eyes of a hawk.

She survived the most bloody war in the history of Amestris. Then, she survived guilt.

Yet she worried if she was found attractive.

_ Waste of time, _ she tried to convince herself as she splashed water on her face and pulled her hair up.  _ Quit thinking about things that are juvenile, Riza,  _ she scolded as she buttoned up her uniform.

That god-forsaken dream had forced her to face an insecurity that she was so ashamed of, she’d never even realized it until the dream had stuffed it in her mouth.

She wanted Colonel Mustang,  _ her superior _ , to find her attractive. Because she certainly found him to be, and the mere  _ thought  _ that he could consider her not even repulsive, but simply unexceptional, was overwhelming.

“You’re full of shit,” she said to herself aloud as she laid down her dog’s breakfast. Attentive of her tone, the dog hesitated from munching and gave her a tilted look. This earned him a smile.

“Not you, Hayate,” she assured. “Mom is a little wired and foolish today.” The dog seemed to believe her and poked his snout in the bowl.

Work was, to her mild surprise, quite average. Walking into the room early, she had 20 minutes to herself to find coffee and sort through her papers. By the time her coworkers had begun straggling in, she’d almost forgotten about the dream, instead shoving it downwards into a pit that once held the insecurities the dream itself had exposed. A place to ignore and forget troubles. Mailing memories, events, thoughts or transgressions to this pit was a favorite pastime of hers, and she was skilled at it.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” said Mustang casually as he walked past her to his desk. Smiling up at him, she returned the greeting. Only the distant thud of her heart remained as witness of the morning’s worry.

She watched him for too long. Longer than any sane, any...comfortable...person, would do. He was bright, he was real.  _ Was. _

This memory was real. But, she thought as she continue to look at his unaware face, a memory cannot be re-lived, and it cannot be revived.

Even as the walls fell like cardboard and the scene diminished, the sun behind his hair dispelling into black and the carpet flattening into a vacuum, he was still real. He was there.

On that day, she hadn’t stared at him in such a way. She had returned his greeting, stilled her silly thoughts, and accompanied her work on an average day’s journey.

The morning had begun with something as flaccid as personal insecurity, it had developed as any other day, and it had ended with her alone in the streets, staring at the space she had lost him.

Then, he had sat in his chair. Today, his desk was empty. The sun shimmed through the window, unencumbered by his unkempt hair, as though the days were no stranger or no more desolate than days previous. The sun continued to shine bright. Hadn’t it be dull, like in the books?

Roy Mustang was not at his desk. The day was stranger, the day was more desolate. She stared at the empty space for too long. Longer than any sane, any comfortable, person would do.

It had been two weeks, yet still her throat scratched at the screams she had made when they took him. Her still healing lacerations burned beneath her uniform sleeves. The man she had once called Fuhrer had had his inhuman fingers taut around her, but the wounds were not on purpose, for she had been writhing so violently that he had ripped into her skin.

_ “Don’t come find me, Lieutenant!”  _ He had shouted as Envy and Gluttony dragged him away.  _ “Lieutenant Hawkeye, do not come find me!” _

It was his last order.  _ Don’t you think, Miss Lieutenant? _

How could I? she found herself thinking. I wouldn’t know where to look.  _ He’s the perfect match. _

Two weeks. Two weeks without him, without sleep, without food nor appetite nor clarity.  _ Who else better? _

A thin layer of dust, fragile enough to be wisted away by the simple act of passing by, settled on the top of his desk. It was free of folders, papers, reports, anything. The day after, as she stumbled into the office, she’d taken them to finish. They needed finishing...

_ We need a Greed. Who else better? He’s the perfect match. _

Envy’s cruel taunts replaced her ability to live.

_ Don’t you think, Miss Lieutenant? _

Don’t come find me.

Three days after, his state alchemist watch had been left atop her belongings, the chain crusted red and hanging off the small mountain of paperwork. Phantom bile had risen to the top of her throat and her chest had nearly burst at the sight. Hands that shook like leaves had lifted the watch, opened it, and saw the words “he won’t be needing this” shoved inside. 

Had her chair not been directly beside her, she would have hit the ground.

“How do you know he lived?” Havoc had asked when she told him, so quietly she’d almost not heard. “What if he didn’t take to the stone...and died?”

“Because,” Riza answered confidently, eyes shining like cut glass, “if he were dead, it would have been his body on this desk.”

Fourteen days had been spent bumbling through reports, leaving them barely finished before laying out her primary project across the oak desk. A map of Central’s streets, detailed down to the sewage system. He had asked her not to find him, but he had asked her a great deal many things that she did not obey. If any of them deserved to be broken and buried, it was this order.

Personnel would ask where Colonel Mustang had gone. The chatty receptionist at the front would pout at each day he didn’t walk through the door.

“He’s still on holiday with his mother, Eloise,” Riza would smile. Eloise would scoff, yet grin at the same time. “A boy who loves his mother”, she said each morning fondly. “Why wouldn’t he report his holiday to his superiors?” the brass would ask. “This is Colonel Mustang we’re talking about, sir, I’m afraid he has little to no regard for such things. He did, however, file the paperwork for it. I’ve got it right here.”

Masking his disappearance forced her to mask her misery.

“Stop covering, Hawkeye,” Breda had pleaded forcefully as he pulled her aside after another conversation. “It’s going to break you.”

“I have to, Breda,” she’d replied. “These people don’t know about the Fuhrer, or about the Homunculi. When the Colonel returns, he still has a reputation to upkeep and a ladder to climb.”

She’d seen a look cross Breda’s face, like he’d been washed through with a breath-catching breeze of ice. Yet he said nothing.

“What?” she had whispered almost venomously. It was a dare. Breda swallowed, his eyes falling to the floor before rising again.

“He...may not come back, Riza.”

Riza’s lips had closed at the words, and her chin lifted as the emotion in her eyes died.

“In this building, my title is Lieutenant Hawkeye.”

She had turned round and left before he could have said another word. She had never felt uglier.

The sunlight in that empty space fell behind the horizon. The men had long left the office, and only the exhaustion from her eyes convinced her to leave the vacated Central Headquarters. The map was folded and stored in her black messenger bag.

The walk home had been a nauseating blur. Cold, bitter winds bit into her own bitter face. As hard as it could have tried, the night could not intimidate Riza Hawkeye, for she felt nearly as mean as it.

The apartment was quiet without Black Hayate. Usually, the jingle of her keys was smothered beneath the happy sounds of a dog inside. The sound was sharp as it was made alone.

_ Take him, Kain, just for now. I don’t have time. _

_ Lieutenant…! I...I think keeping him would do you some good. To have some company, you know? _

_ Walk him twice a day. Thank you. _

She flipped on the lights as the door shut behind her, and the sound the keys made inside the door was nothing compared to the noise they made as they smashed against the floor, clapping together and carving marks into the wood.

His back was to her, his body facing the bookshelf she kept in the corner. The window a few feet to his right was open, the night filling the room with bathed blues and chilly breezes. He lifted a book into the air lazily.

“Iskavov. Nice choice.”

She said nothing, forcing her rapid blinking and gulping throat to steady before she would be forced to face him.

As though reading her thoughts, attuned to her silence, he turned around so the left side of his face was washed in the window’s moonlight. And Riza saw Roy Mustang’s face and somebody else’s eyes.

“Was it something I said?” he smirked.

In her mind, Riza wanted to look away and let her tears fall. She wanted to gasp for breath and fall to her knees. The urge to scream and break apart was nearly too much...but she stood still as a mountain and allowed her features no sort of movement.

“What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

He faked a pout and let the book drop to the ground.

“I thought you’d want to see me.”

“I don’t know you.” Her voice was hard. Mean, like the night.

“Well that’s not quite true.” He started towards her, the moonlight shifting to the right side of his face as he walked, then disappearing behind him to fall to the rug. “We’ve known each other for quite some time. Since childhood, actually. But you know that.”

His boots clocked against the floor, a noise louder than anything she’d heard, and he stopped barely 12 inches from her and pointed towards his head.

“I have his memories.”

“Then you will remember his own hatred against what you have  forced him to become.”

His laughter was like it was in another language, so foreign to have come from his mouth.

“Me? Babe, I didn’t force him to do anything, alright? If anything,  _ they  _ forced  _ me  _ onto him. Though I gotta say...The Flame Alchemist?” He shrugged. “Not a bad vessel.”

“I want you to know that I’m going to kill you and bring him back.”

His hands leapt out from beside his hips and snatched her wrists, shoving them against the door behind her so aggressively her head bounced against it.

“Why are you being so hostile, huh? I didn’t need to come here, sweetheart. I chose to.”

He was so near her she could see the flaws in his skin. Or she would have, had he been human. How could he be such a near perfect twin? The jawline, the hair, the ears...almost a match. Yet not perfect. Not him. No matter what could fill his body, Riza could see this was not him.

“Why?” she forced out in a whisper. He didn’t answer right away, so she took it as a moment of distractedness and fought against his hold, pulling her wrists downwards and twisting her torso to escape.

Had this been Roy Mustang, she would have been successful. But this replica was far stronger, far quicker, than her colonel, and each yank of muscle went to waste.

“ _ Why are you here?!”  _ she yelled as she began to fight again. Each pull against him was a reminder that they had beat her, they had destroyed her title as bodyguard and overpowered her. They took him because she cannot escape this hold. Still, she struggled. Still she fought. Still, she failed, failed, failed, tonight, then, tomorrow, she failed.

His face twisted in anger at her struggle and he yanked her forward an inch and slammed her back against the door. The clip in her hair scattered to the floor in several pieces.

“He wanted me to!” he shouted back. “Quit fighting me!”

She felt the unmistakable pressure of new bruises begin to bloom beneath his hands. An ache pounded at the back of her head. Extinguished, she became limp in his hold.

“What?”

“He wanted me to come here and check on you, alright? And I was bored with those dumbasses that call me ‘their brother’, so I did. And frankly, having that I just woke up and existed a few weeks back, I’m full of all kinds of angry energy. Nothin’ a little disobedience can’t fix. Happy, you little twerp?”

“You listen to what he wants?” It was a question in subdued alarm.

“Yeah. And he listens to what I want. But make no mistake…” He leaned in closer, his expression bleeding anger. She saw his youth, his lack of control. “I call the shots.”

Riza forced her breathing to steady. She couldn’t be sure if the moisture running down the back of her neck was sweat or blood. The other homunculi had a power to them that he didn’t possess...a power that was roped off, loaded, ready for weaponization. He wore his on his sleeve, openly, without border.

And it frightened her.

“You came here because he wanted you to?” she clarified.

The smile he answered her with was closer to a snarl.

“Yes.”

Her hands began to tingle with numbness as his grip continued to cut off her flow of blood.

“He would never…” her breathing became heavy with adrenaline, “want to hurt me.”

The snarl fell from his face like a dropped mask. He stood there like that for a moment, then his features smoothed into fear and his eyes warmed like sand.

His hands released her wrists and she hissed through her teeth at the feel of it.

“Lieutenant…” he muttered in horror. Her lips parted as his voice filled her ears, and she leapt forward and put her palm against his face.

“Colonel!” she cried, feeling his skin beneath her hand. “Are you alright?”

He gently reached for the wrist against his face and pulled it away to examine it with a face so unlike the one he had dawned moments before.

“I didn’t want this…” he uttered to himself.

“Colonel, tell me how to save you! Tell me what to do, please!”

“Hawkeye…” His eyes left her skin to find her eyes. “It’s worse than we thought. Their plan...they’re going to wipe out the country. They’re far more powerful than we previously thought, and their leader, the oldest of them…”

His look wandered to a space behind her shoulders.

“He’s going to be nearly unstoppable…”

“Colonel Mustang, I need you. I need your power. I can’t beat them without you. Tell me how to accomplish taking you back!”

“You can’t.” His voice was quiet, calm. A stark opposite of hers.

The grip he still had on her wrist became a little tighter, and he moved his hand to grasp hers.

“There isn’t anything you can do, Hawkeye. And I’m learning more being like this...maybe...I can find a weak spot.”

“What?” she asked herself aloud, wrought with confusion. “I can’t let them…” She gathered her emotions and stood straighter. “Sir, I cannot allow them to take you.”

“They have been keeping you alive because they needed me to participate...but my participation is involuntary now…” He gasped suddenly and stumbled back a step, though struck by some invisible force. He didn’t release her hand.

“It’s Greed…” he said through his teeth. “He wants control.”

“Colonel,” her voice broke.

“Hawkeye.” His was strong suddenly, sure, as he stood back straight. “They can kill you now that you’re no longer needed. If you keep this up…” He reached into the messenger bag at her hip and pulled out the map. “They will end your life.”

She used her free hand to take the map back from him. He grunted as Greed tried to rise again, and huffed back the call inwards.

“I told you,” he said shakily. “Not to find me.”

“I can’t do that…” she started.

“Hawkeye,” he interjected. “When the time comes, I will find you. I promise. But stop this. Losing you would be to lose this war.” His eyes, so familiar to her, bore into her own with fiery intent. “Burn the map.”

The wetness that had been threatening her eyes finally filled them, and the lump in her throat grew as she watched his face twitch and his breath sputter as he began to lose the fight against Greed.

Yet again, he stilled himself and took in a few steadying breaths. Fingers ran across the top of her knuckles, and he gave her one last smile, small enough so that it didn’t reach his eyes.

“God,” he said on the exhale of a breath. He finally released her hand, and let the tips of his fingers lightly touch the side of her face instead. “You’re a damn beautiful sight, Lieutenant.”

A tear fell as he bent into himself for a last time, the fingers ghosting away from her skin, and when he rose again, he was a stranger.

He stared at her, his brow furrowed together and his lips in a thin line. Then he blinked away his gaze, turned around, and disappeared out of the window quicker than her next tear could fall.

The wind moved lazily outside, pushing in the frigid air and rustling her curtains. Her knees hit the floor, her palms slapping against the wood, and silent tears continue to fall from her cheeks.

That night, she dreamt nothing, for she did not sleep. That sliver of meaning she once desired, because she hadn’t the torture of life, was given to her. He’d found her beautiful. And it was given to her by a circumstance she could have never fathomed, revealed by the surrounding of moments that dared to drive her insane. It was all so meaningless, now, when once it seemed so stupidly prevalent. He could have found he hideous, he could have found her boing, he could have found her to be shaped like a fruit, she wouldn’t have minded so long as he was at his desk the next morning.

But he found her beautiful, he would spend his nights somewhere unfamiliar, and tomorrow Riza would pull down her uniform sleeves to cover the bruises as she told Eloise that yes, he was still on holiday with his mother.

When will he come back? the girl would likely ask with a pursed lip. Soon, Eloise, Riza would say. And that, she swore to herself over, over, and over, was not a lie.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
